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Winners Define
Orthodoxy By Brian Knowles
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For some 35 years, I've made my living crafting words into
sentences, sentences into paragraphs, and paragraphs into
articles and books. I enjoy words. They are symbols for thoughts.
Writing is thinking on paper. Words, however, are not always what
they seem. Many of them are loaded with "freight" or
"baggage." Take, for example, the words
"orthodoxy" and "heresy."
The Medical Example
In virtually any profession, you have your "orthodox"
practitioners, and your "heretics." For instance,
consider the nomenclature of the medical profession. Mainstream
medical practice is referred to in the media, and by itself, as
"orthodox" or "conventional." Sometimes the
word "traditional" is used as well.
"Standard" medical practice is also called
"scientific medicine." These are all positive words.
Conversely, natural medicine is termed "unorthodox,"
"alternative" or even "quackery." It is
viewed as "unscientific." Generally negative imagery.
As we daily absorb the literature and media that use this
nomenclature, we find ourselves buying into it. We accept the
idea that it is "normal" or "conventional" to
burn, toxify, and cut away body parts, and we embrace the notion
that working with the body's natural physiology is somehow
"quackery." Natural medicine is based on an
understanding of how the human body works as a total system. It
is quite scientific. When the body becomes toxic, or when the
flows of any of its systems are arrested (bowel, liver/gall
bladder, kidney/ bladder, nerves, blood vessels, lymphatic
system, lungs, skin etc. etc.) then the thing to do is detoxify
and release blockages so that normal flows can be restored.
What's so unscientific about that?
What's unscientific about bowel cleansing or releasing stones
from the kidney and gall bladder through natural means rather
than cutting them out? What's unorthodox about detoxifying the
body, getting good nutrition into it, and rebuilding the immune
system, which is our first line of defense against disease? Why
is that "quackery"?
It's quackery because those who don't believe in it have gained
power, and those who do have lost it. "Orthodox"
medicine is Big Business these days. HMO's are in business to
make a profit, not to get people healthy so that they don't have
to use them. Mainstream medicine is interested in getting rid of
its competition. Hence, it must discredit it, and label it
"heresy." Big Drug considers natural foods and
supplements "ineffective" because they don't instantly
mask symptoms and cause side effects.
Orthodoxy and heresy are defined by those who win battles for
power and influence. In China, the Communist Party decides what
is orthodox and what is heresy. Politically, Communism defines
one-party rule as orthodox and multi-party competition as heresy.
In this country, we see it the opposite way. Who is right? The
Communist Party is "right" for China, the Constitution
is "right" for America. The point is: orthodoxy and
heresy are not defined objectively, but by power.
Theological Orthodoxy & Heresy
In recent days, the world has been transfixed by the death
pageant surrounding the pope. The world's largest Christian
church has lost its leader. For millions of Catholics the world
over, the pope was the paragon of orthodoxy. World leaders have
recognized his preeminent position in Christianity by beating a
path to his coffin. The Roman Catholic Church views itself as the
guardian of Christian orthodoxy. All other claims must be
evaluated in the light of its official dogma and doctrine.
Protestants of course disagree. The various cults also disagree -
both with Catholicism and Protestantism. The Orthodox Churches -
both Russian and Greek - also disagree. Who is truly orthodox,
and who is heretical?
Within the Christian Church, as in the medical profession,
orthodoxy is determined by those who won the power struggles for
dominance. Bart D. Ehrman writes: "During the first two and
a half centuries, Christianity comprised a number of competing
theologies, or better, a number of competing Christian groups
advocating a variety of theologies. There was as yet no
established 'orthodoxy,' that is, no basic theological system
acknowledged by the majority of church leaders and laity.
Different local churches supported different understandings of
the religion, while different understandings of the religion were
present even within the same local church" (The Orthodox
Corruption of Scripture, p. 4).
Sect of the Nazarene
In its original form, the "Church" was not an
institution but a "sect" within Judaism. It was known
as "the sect of the Nazarene" and it revolved around
the teachings of Yeshua the Jewish Rabbi (Acts 24:5). It was also
known as "the Way" (Acts 9:2; 24:14). The religion of
Jesus and his followers was Judaism, not"Christianity."
The word "Christian" was not even invented in Jesus'
day. It was not until more than a decade after Jesus'
resurrection - around 43 AD - that the term "Christian"
was coined in gentile Antioch, possibly as a pejorative (Acts
11:26). Until the gentiles began fellowshipping with the Jewish
believers in response to Paul's Gospel, what later became known
as "The Church" was a wholly Jewish "witnessing
body" (Hebrew = edah). The Jewish apostles bore witness to
what they had seen and heard.
The first followers of Jesus had no formal theology. The story of
Jesus' life and teachings was not even written down until some 40
years after his resurrection. Everything the early Christians
knew, they knew from word of mouth (oral tradition). In the
mid-fifties, the letters of Paul were first copied and circulated
among the gentile congregations that were springing up all over
the Roman Empire. Most of these groups were founded from
synagogue Jews and "God-fearer" gentiles and proselytes
who fellowshipped with them in their synagogues (Acts 10:1, 22;
13:42, 49).
For the first decades of its existence, the fledgling Church had
no formal or structured theology. The Jewish Christians practiced
the tenets of normative Judaism. The God-fearers among them were
like Noachides. They adopted the aspects of Jesus' and the
apostle's Judaism that applied to gentiles. Yet they knew they
were not under all of the same obligations to Torah as were the
Jewish believers. This is clear from a close study of the
implications of the Jerusalem Conference recorded in Acts 15 and
the letter that followed it.
The teachings, doctrines, dogmas and theologies that emerged from
the gentile Church in the centuries following the deaths of the
original apostles bore little resemblance to the fundamentally
Jewish teaching of the earlier Church. In fact the edifice of
subsequent church theology was erected upon a foundation of
anti-Judaism.
Enter Constantine
The Roman Emperor, Constantine, was the founder of the "Holy
Roman Empire" and the one who ended persecution against the
Church. In 325 AD, he called the Council of Nicea, at which the
basis for much Catholic theology was established. It was
Constantine who married Church and State in what turned out to be
an unholy alliance. Following Nicea, the emperor wrote a letter
to the Christian churches of which he was now the head. In it he
excoriated the Jews, their teachings, their character and their
right to represent God. He deemed it "...a most unworthy
thing that we should follow the custom of the Jews in the
celebration of this most holy solemnity [Easter], who, polluted
wretches! Having stained their hands with this nefarious crime
[killing Christ], are justly blinded in their minds..."
He wrote of "...rejecting the practice of this
people..." and he said, "Let us have nothing in common
with the most hostile rabble of the Jews.. that most odious
fellowship.the vilest of mankind.these parricides and murderers
of our Lord..." etc., etc., etc.
Dan Gruber says of Constantine's purple prose: "In this
letter, Constantine officially establishes an anti-Judaic
foundation for the doctrine and practice of the Church, and
declares that contempt for the Jews, and separation from them, is
the only proper Christian attitude" (The Church and the Jews
by Dan Gruber, pp. 33-35, excerpts).
With the power of the Roman Empire behind him, Constantine was in
a position to enforce any kind of doctrine and thinking he wanted
to. Needless to say, the Church became the "Church of
Constantine." He was the 600-lb. gorilla who decided the
direction it would take from that time forth. Needless to say, it
moved farther and farther away from its Jewish roots and deeper
and deeper into Greek and pagan philosophy. In fact, the
formation of doctrine in the Church was influenced by many
streams: Gnosticism, Zoroas-trianism (the religion of the
Persians), the allegorical method of interpretation (as set forth
by Origen), and various prevailing manifestations of paganism. It
became truly a "Catholic" - that is, Universal -
religion. The Jews, and Jewish Christians, were left in the dust.
The purity and simplicity of the original apostle's doctrine
(Acts 2:42) was contaminated by the inflow of a wide variety of
toxic streams. The Church that emerged in the wake of Constantine
was a far cry from Jerusalem. It was gentile through and through.
Its doctrines continued to evolve and develop over a period of
many centuries. Many of them bore no resemblance to the
"thought worlds" of the Old and New Testaments. The
Church, under the heavy-handed guidance of Rome, had the power to
define "orthodoxy" in any way it wanted to, and it did
just that. As Gruber writes, "God's Truth was to be
determined by Church councils, and not by the Word of God.
Consequently the teaching which was a blasphemous heresy to
Justin Martyr became the new, unchallengeable orthodoxy"
(The Church and the Jews, p. 39).
Gruber sums up what happened this way: "Constantine and
Eusebius institutionalized many serious errors. They made changes
that were to plunge the Church and the world into a literal
thousand years of darkness. They laid a different foundation than
Jesus and His apostles had laid. A new era in the history of the
Church had begun. In actuality, a new Church began" (ibid.
p. 40).
Throughout ecclesiastical history, the same principle - that
power defines orthodoxy - has prevailed. When the Reformers
gained power in various parts of the so-called "Holy"
Roman Empire, they too imposed their doctrine as orthodox. Those
who dissented were sometimes burned at the stake. When Henry VIII
established himself as head of the Anglican Church, he defined
orthodoxy in accordance with his own wants and needs.
Within autocratic, smaller sects and denominations, the leader du
jour is able to enforce his will as being orthodox, and all who
disagree are by definition, heretics. It was ever thus in the
world of religion. It's a variation on the old theme: "Might
makes right."
Perhaps this is the reason the synagogue, to its credit, has long
been a democratic institution. Consequently, no rabbinic tyrant
has been able to force his will upon the whole of Judaism, or
even upon one of its divisions. For all of its antiquity, Judaism
is nowhere near as divided as Christianity with its thousands of
denominations. Judaism has only three main groupings: Orthodox,
Conservative, and Reform. Within those groups, there are
variations, but nothing like the chaos we Christians have
experienced. But then, it's probably a good thing, as I wrote in
an earlier column. At least it prevents any one group from
imposing its orthodoxy on the rest of us. We are free, therefore,
to live in conscience toward God.
"Out of the Box" is
a regular feature of the Association for Christian
Development Web site ( www.godward.org ).
Brian Knowles is an artist and writer. |
TSS
July
- August 2005 The Sabbath Sentinel
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